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dakohli writes "Michael Geist has pointed out an interesting development at the National Post's website. 'If you try to highlight the text to cut and paste it, you are presented with a pop-up request to purchase a license if you plan to post the article to a website, intranet or a blog. The fee would be $150.' He notes that even if you are highlighting a 3rd party quote inside an article a pop-up asking if you want a license will appear. Mr Geist points out this might be contrary to Canadian Copyright Law's fair use provisions."

I think I should get payed for every comment or news article or law I am forced to consider, read or hear about. I should be payed every time I get stopped by the police for speeding! I should be able to bill them for time lost! I should OWN ALL THE THINGS. Unfortunately Farengi economics creates the downfall of civilizations as you are now witnessing.

This logic is stupid and unfortunately the great uplifting of 2012 did not enlighten anyone.

They have a computer. If you ask their computer nicely, it will send you some bits.

They're free to send me whatever bits they like in response to my request (so long as they don't materially misrepresent what they are, as in the case of malware etc.). In turn, I'm free to do whatever I like with the bits they send me. If I want to interpret them as instructions for rendering a webpage, as is conventional, I can do so. I can also print out the HTML and wipe my ass with it if I like.

If that webpage has some Javascript that says "Ooh, you highlighted some text, pay me please!" I am free to turn off Javascript and cut and paste that text, or render it in Lynx, or grep the HTML, or whatever the hell else I want.

If they didn't want me to have access to the text they sent me, they shouldn't have sent it to me.

If that webpage has some Javascript that says "Ooh, you highlighted some text, pay me please!" I am free to turn off Javascript and cut and paste that text, or render it in Lynx, or grep the HTML, or whatever the hell else I want.

Unless that counts as 'circumventing a digital lock' according to the Conservative Party's draconian copyright legislation. Then you become a criminal.

Hmm... That is rather interesting. Can you illegally circumvent a digital lock through inaction? By not running this script, or if we remember back to the Sony fiasco, by not running the autoplay root-kit, is that criminal?

Hmm... That is rather interesting. Can you illegally circumvent a digital lock through inaction?

As matter of fact, circumventing of locks, doors, gates, and other access control mechanisms is most commonly done by not going through them. Latin roots of the word mean "go around." Can't be much more obvious.

For example: see a locked gate? Find a hole in the fence. See a locked safe? Find someone who knows the code. Have an encrypted DVD? Point a camera at the screen.

In this case, noscript can be seen as a hacking tool because it modifies the programming that the web site sends to you. The characters of the content are to be seen together with the programming to create the presentation as you are expected to perceive it by the content creator.

You cannot claim inaction because most browsers (and perhaps all that the site is designed for) run JS by default. You did act when you installed NoScript. The fact that you did it ahead of time changes nothing. Perhaps you won't be fined for using Lynx; but if you use FF and then load it with ad-blocking extensions then you acted plenty.

If you disagree and claim that the ASCII content can and should be treated apart from the instructions on how to present it, then you will also have to claim that the encrypted DVD bits are to be seen as plaintext and the key - and as long as you have the technical ability to separate them you are in the clear. The DMCA seems to have a differing opinion on that.

As an intermediate step, to muddy the water a bit more, you can imagine an HTML page that consists of the ciphertext of the content and of the JS that locally generates the plaintext. Will extraction of the plaintext be legal under the DMCA, if JS prevents you from right-clicking or selecting? In this case JS is even specially designed to inform you that copying is not free. Any copying you do will be explicitly against the license. And it can be argued that you accepted the license by accessing the site and copying the data. Don't like the license? Read, but you may not copy.

It is already firmly established in USA law that ineffectual DRM measures (such as pdf passwords) that can be trivially bypassed by methods such as using software that does not actively support the measure do not qualify as anticircumvention measures under the DMCA. Accessing a Web page which is "protected" only by JS and so can be accessed by Lynx or Firefox with NoScript does not violate the DMCA. Saying "Please don't copy this" is not DRM.

> And it can be argued that you accepted the license by> accessing the site and copying the data. Don't like the> license?

To bind me to a contract you must show me the contract and condition my receipt of the document on my acceptance of the license.

I am not a lawyer, so I don't understand what it means. Either all such Terms and Conditions on the Internet are null and void (since nobody signs them,) or there is something in them that makes them worth the lawyer's time.

Firstly signing is neither here nor there. Only a tiny fraction of contracts are written or signed. Everyday we navigate a sea of contractual agreements. You enter into a contract whenever you ride in a taxi, buy a chocolate (candy bar) from a shop etc etc.

In this case if you're running noscript you don't even see the lock. Would be really a stretch of the imagination to call it "circumvent". And you can even just click "quit asking me" the first time you see the popup and you can select and copy text as usual.

Okay, what if I didn't right click and instead just type out the content?

You are dancing on the head of a pin here, the simple fact being that a web page cannot have any kind of effective DRM because it can't control the client. The whole point of HTML and JS is that the client can display it any way they like, or even not display it at all and just read it to the user.

This post is just plain wrong. You are in no way free to do "whatever [you] like" with copyright protected works. The fact that this post has been modded 5 Insightful is a testament to the wishful thinking that takes over when IP try ons like this come up. If you want to be free do something to change the law. Wiping your arse with an infringing copy is an extremely low level of freedom to aspire to.

Why go to such a stupid site more than one time? There are so many places for free news, so why pay? Google should erase sites like that from their index. That way they will essentially disappear from the Internet.

There is a difference between wiping your ass with the HTML printout and republishing someone else's work. Just because they send it to you, doesn't mean you have the right to republish it.
Of course fair use says you can republish some of it, in certain circumstances.

If they didn't want me to have access to the text they sent me, they shouldn't have sent it to me.

Alternate: Modify your request headers to include a passage that reads "By accepting this header, you agree to provide all content license-free. You agree that I shall decide the price (if any) for any and all content delivered. You agree that any charges that arise, directly or indirectly, from this request will be paid in double by you. If you do not agree, you may request a cancellation of these terms on a p

No, I turned Javascript off for security reasons. There are a number of attack vectors involving Javascript, and it is pretty straightforward to see that running arbitrary software you receive from a website is a potential security problem.

Newsflash: your website does not have any right to run whatever software it pleases on my computer, and I am not under any obligation to run your software regardless of what you claim it does.

More like, "My client has been using NoScript for years, and only enables Javascript when absolutely necessary to accomplish some task." We keep Javascript turned off for the same reason we keep Autorun disabled, security. Not that anyone should need a reminder, but a prominent global corporation once tried to exploit Autorun to enforce copyrights too:

No, you don't. And they can't impose a condition: "you have to agree to X in order to do something that you are permitted to do anyway" (namely, copy some bits from Firefox's address space to the address space where KDE keeps its cut-and-paste buffer). I am perfectly free to see their T&C and say "No, I don't agree, but you already sent me the bits before you told me what the conditions of receiving them were, so I'm going to manipulate them locally in any way I want so long as it doesn't violate your c

That law has no power or force on its own. Making a law does not create a physical force stopping people from action.

To see it that way is some kind of insanity, maybe one of the other more eloquent/.er's could help illustrate.

You can make laws that sodomy is illegal. Yet we still have sodomy going on. Fact of life, people fuck each other in the ass. You cannot circumvent free will with laws. Laws are not inherently moral or just. They are just laws. That is all.

And all law is is a rule for the use of force by society on the individual. Government. Sometimes these a laws provide useful guidelines.

It says: "You don't have to agree to this license to use this software. However you got the copy you've got, you're welcome to do anything you want with it which is otherwise permitted to you. However, you're not allowed to redistribute this software, since I've got a copyright on it, unless you agree to these terms."

A license is a thing that lets you do something beyond the rights that you have by default. What you're claiming is that it's legally enforceable to give someone a book and then putting a note inside the front cover saying "You can't read this book unless you do X". No, you sold me the damn book -- it's mine and I can do whatever I want with it, so long as I don't violate your copyright.

^^ this is the crux of it in a technical legal sense and what should be being mentioned, discussed and understood in courts of law with jailbraiking of phones and drm and all that. Our legal system has people in it smart enough to understand this simple fact if they would not refuse to look and turn a blind eye to anything that they should have been taught in whatever college they went to to get their law degree.

That and the people defending the letter of the law as Entropius described this should be patted

You are giving an interpretation according to the laws of some country or other. Which country? Do you think that interpretation is sane? At some point we have to acknowledge that basically no legal system is going to get copyright right as it relates to digital media and the internet and construct our own ethics, fully acknowledging that the lawyers may not like it.

Yes, reproducing the article in its entirety and publishing it is a violation of copyright. I agree that if I were to, say, copy and paste that

Well, it is copyrighted. I can't republish it or claim that it is mine. But I can do other things, like translate it to Spanish, or move it around in my computer's RAM, or print it out and take it on an airplane with me. "Access", here, means the ability to do anything with it other than those things that are specifically forbidden to me by copyright law. They're welcome to claim that there are other things they don't want me to do either -- maybe "you can't read this text while drunk." But (under any sane

I browse with javascript turned off, only switching on if I really need to. The firefox NoScript plugin allows you to be selective, thus I allow parts of what some sites try to run, but not everything.

How do they do this? I disabled noscript and sure enough it popped up something. How would this even get into Mozilla without Mozilla colluding with the enemy? When was it in the standards committee where someone stood up and said "we need a way to better screw the web site visitors with this feature" and no one objected? What are the list of browsers that refuse to partake in this without resorting to plugins?

What we need is some sort of open standards to allow people to more easily exchange informatio

Firstly, HTML and javascript are seperate. To use a car analogy, think of a gas can. You have a gas can, and then you have the gas in it. The HTML is just a delivery mechanism and container for the javascript. Both HTML and javascript are based on standards, and there is nothing in either of the standards trying to screw the user out of copy/pasting text.

Go to maps.google.com. Right Click on the map. See how it presents you with a few options? Now, instead of p

I hate to burst your bubble, son, but I telnet to port 80, pipe in the HTML and transform it to PDF on the fly using XSL:FO before viewing it in my mind's eye, all printed neatly with page numbers, a TOC, an index, *and* an annotated bibliography!

Just block scripts from icopyright.net .
They advertise some "fancy" features content publishers:

Your iCopyright plugin [for Wordpress] is automatically configured with a default set of business rules that grant users permission to use a limited amount of your content for free, and to license the rights to use your content for a fee. You can modify these services and prices by logging into the iCopyright Conductor console and changing the settings for your publication. From within Conductor you can also use the Discovery infringement detection service, execute syndication agreements, and run reports on licensing activity and revenue.

Obviously, it isn't exactly news that a number of copyright holders have...expansively optimistic... interpretations of what rights exactly they hold. Some of this seems to be pure self-righteous delusion. Some of it seems to be deliberate spin aimed at shoving the discourse(and state of law) in their preferred direction.

In the specific case of talking about 'fair use', while trying to sell licenses, though, I have to wonder if they are incurring any responsibility... If a mechanic or a plumber gave you false advice as to the nature of the repairs you needed, in order to sell them to you, they'd be well into 'sleazy at best, open to legal action for fraud at worst' territory. Is it OK if you are pseudo-providing legal advice? (They would obviously deny being in the position of providing you with legal advice; but a 'here is when you need a license or you just might be unprotected when we sue you' statement sure sounds like legal advice to me...)

Using NoScript is without a doubt the simplest solution. No clicking needed, you just read the article you want to read without running whatever software the website is asking you to run. You also benefit from improved security, improved privacy, and less wasted CPU time.

Usually I just find some other website to read to be honest. Javascript is not needed to load text, and using it in that way breaks all kinds of things, so I figure those websites can just get one less impression from me.

I run NoScript, and I had no problem copying and pasting. I'm sure the people who actually implemented the copy/paste Javascript were secretly feeling dirty implementing something they knew wasn't going to work, but that management told them they had to do.

I didn't even do that. I just highlighted the text and it was copied to my clipboard and then I could middle click anywhere to paste the text.

If you can select the text, you can copy it, no matter of what.

Then when news sites starts rendering all text as images we need to start using OCR and even then we get the content...How about encryption with key per reader and effective watermarking and personal security guard behind every reader checking the content isn't copied?

To when web sites tried to disable right-clicking to "hide" their source code. I was in middle school and knew that was baloney...

Actually, this reminds me of web sites hosting lyrics, too, that either attempt to disable right-click or insert their website in tiny text between words of lyrics.

Reading the article tells me that this sort of "fee" doesn't have a legal leg to stand on. I've never been to the web site in question, but if I ever needed to and wished to copy some text, nothing prevents me from doi

This doesn't seem to be popping up for me, not at all on any browser I've tried, nor do I see any references in any script relating to said company on any page that I've looked at. Maybe it's because I'm in Canada?

The Web developers need to do some work. Yes, dragging to select text activates the popup. But clicking on the page and hitting Ctrl-A to select everything in one fell swoop doesn't activate the popup.

Oops. Did I just describe how to break a Digital Lock? Oh noes... Harper and his gang will be after me....

I doubt there's any law against asking someone for money in exchange for a license to use copyrighted material. Nor is there any law against using copyrighted material without paying under the fair use exemption. You could pay money to use material even if you think it is covered under fair use, if you feel like it, but you don't need to.

There's no law that says people holding copyrights have to give you the capability to copy-paste the material. I know, cause one time I tried to sue someone because I could

Even easier: turn Javascript off. Or will allowing websites to run arbitrary programs on your computer become a legal requirement too?

The issue is not whether you are required to run arbitrary programs on your computer or not. The issue is whether you are permitted to copy the article, and if so how much (many fair use provisions around the world limit the amount that can be cited and will not protect against reproducing a "substantial portion").

... if someone wanted to republish an article entirely now they can do it much more easily, instead of figuring out who to contact to negotiate a license.

Does it really do that, though? According to TFS, the popups come up for third-party quotes as well as for the original content. If this paper actually has the rights to that third party material, I'll eat my hat. If you think that's okay, I've got some Mickey Mouse licenses I would just love to sell you.

Yeah, I agree, because not one single nerd, or novice nerd, or nerd-to-be can possibly benefit from this article, right? Consider little Katy. She watches the world around her, and sees that some people do some fascinating things with ease, while other people struggle to get a computer to do what they want it to do. Katy has begun to keep up with various sites, like slashdot, where she learns a thing or two every day. There's no need for slashdot to cater to Katy, is there? I mean - she's just a little